Tag Archives: Nantong

Every day, Shaw Contract Group translates global design into flooring solutions that enhance the interior environments of people around the world. With products installed in 80 countries – and global reach that includes showrooms, offices, sales people and service providers worldwide – we are accustomed to delivering style and service to a diverse community of customers.

From multi-national organizations to healthcare and educational institutions, to commercial facilities and offices, we have the capability of delivering and recycling flooring to and from every corner of the world – including yours.

Our new manufacturing facility in Nantong, China, increases our ability to deliver the same Shaw Contract Group style, quality and performance our customers expect with speed and efficiency to the Asia Pacific region. Shaw’s expansion into Asia was recently profiled in the most recent issue of Cubes Indesign Magazine (Issue #65, Dec/Jan 2013/14), one of the top contract publications in Southeast Asia. The article provides insight on how Shaw Contract Group positions itself in the market, featuring interviews with John Stephens, Vice President of Marketing, and Jeff Galloway, Divisional Vice President of Asia Pacific. Jeff also discusses the company’s game changing moves in Asia with journalist Yvonne Xu in a featured interview on the IndesignLive Singapore website. Read it here!

The red carpet is unfurled, the sign-in book is open and a line of sharply dressed greeters –boutonnieres pinned to their lapels –stands at the entrance of a huge tent draped in red and white fabric. Fashion show? Graduation ceremony? A little of both actually — and more.

We’ve travelled 65 miles from Shanghai to be here in the port city Nantong, China to celebrate the opening of Shaw Industry’s new carpet tile plant, a 210,000 square-foot manufacturing hub that has already begun to serve the Asia Pacific region with a wide range of completely recyclable, Cradle-to-Cradle-certified products. Hundreds of invited Shaw associates, clients and international designers have come from across the globe for the opening, which has also drawn a host of Shaw executives and Chinese government officials who have been intimately involved with the plant’s creation from the very beginning.

All this pomp is relatively new for Shaw, but it’s a tradition in China, where new businesses go all out to celebrate the affair with banners, floral arrangements and banquets. And like at the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics, Shaw’s event is steeped in the celebration of Chinese culture.

Indeed, once the guests find their seats, a dozen female drummers in traditional Chinese opera costumes and vibrant headdresses unleash a thundering percussion on instruments the size of wine barrels, followed by a burst of applause from the audience.

For those present, especially the Shaw executives who have worked long day and — thanks to multiple time zones — nights for the past several years, today’s ceremony represents the end of one journey and the beginning of the next. The timing comes as summer turns into fall, the season of harvest, a fitting moment to mark the occasion.

Shaw has invested $45 million in the Nantong plant, which will employ 250 people producing five million square yards of carpet tile for the Asia Pacific market, where the majority of carpet tile is sold outside of North America. With China the world’s third largest buyer of carpet tile — sales have grown 20% annually — locating the plant in Nantong not only gives Shaw access to the region, it provides an ideal setting for servicing customers across the country from a home nestled amid the city’s rich heritage in woven textiles.

None of this would have been possible without Shaw’s commitment the company’s core values of honesty integrity and passion — values that transcend borders and cultures. Such commitment has been essential to Shaw’s success around the globe, especially in China. “Though we are separated by thousands of kilometers and multiple languages, we are united in creating a better future,” Shaw Industries Chairman and CEO Vance Bell says in his remarks, noting the superb cooperation across the globe that led to this event. Bell is then joined by a select group of designers, Chinese officials, Shaw executives and associates on stage for the plant’s official inauguration. Each flips a switch that illuminates a light bulb, symbolizing one of ten success factors that built the plant, from confidence and local leadership to service and globalization.

A burst of glittering confetti suddenly filled the air as the crowd rose to its feet, cheering.

Shaw’s Director of Commercial Manufacturing, James Jarrett, who has spent many months in Nantong working on the plant, appreciates the Olympic-style celebration. “The excitement the Chinese put into ceremonies is on par with what I really feel,” he tells me. “All the dedication needed to become an Olympian is a lot like the dedication to this success.”

Shaw’s newest carpet manufacturing plant opened September 12 in Nantong, China. The facility represents a $45 million investment to better serve the Asia Pacific market. The plant produces Shaw Contract Group carpet tile manufactured to the same specifications as U.S. products, making a safe, Cradle to Cradle Certified (CM) product more accessible to the region. The 200,000 square foot (1,950 square meter) facility is LEED-certified and has the capacity to produce millions of yards of carpet each year. Orders for products made in the Nantong facility improves delivery dates to the local market by more than 6 weeks.

Dalton, GA, USA – September 13, 2013 – Berkshire Hathaway’s Shaw Industries Group, Inc. (Shaw) has announced its grand opening of a 210,000-square-foot (20,000-square-meter) carpet tile plant in Nantong, China – a port city 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Shanghai. This facility offers customers in Asia quicker access to a wider range of completely recyclable, Cradle-to-Cradle-certified products, which are PVC-free and bitumen-free.

“Nantong’s woven textile heritage mirrors the communities in which we’ve manufactured flooring in the southeastern U.S. for more than half a century,” says Shaw Industries Vice President for Asia Pacific Jeff Galloway. “The feeling of being at home in China is due in even larger part to the reception and cooperation we’ve enjoyed from the Nantong government, the officials in the Nantong Suzhou Science and Industrial Park, and all those with whom we’ve done business in China, including our newest Shaw associates.”

Expected to employ approximately 250 at full capacity, over 100 Shaw associates are onboard at this time. The 24”x24” (61 cm x 61 cm) and 18”x36” (45.7 cm x 91.4 cm) products are being designed in Cartersville, Ga., for global markets, utilizing the successful Eco Solution Q fiber, EcoWorx backing systems, and Ecologix carpet cushioning systems. Products manufactured in China will be sold for installation in the growing Asia market and there are no plans to export them back to the U.S.

“Two thirds of the world’s carpet tile is sold outside of North America – the majority in Asia,” says Shaw Industries Chairman and CEO Vance Bell. “Sales in China, in particular, have grown 20 percent annually, making it the world’s third largest carpet-tile-purchasing country. Our new plant expands our opportunity to serve this growing market.”

This plant opening represents Shaw’s latest efforts to expand its Asia market presence, which includes showrooms or sales teams in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and New Delhi. The Nantong facility is pursuing ISO 9001 and 14000 certifications and was constructed to LEED Gold standards for New Construction (certification pending review).

The China facility grand opening follows Shaw’s recent announcement to open a new carpet manufacturing facility in Adairsville, Ga., to support the growth in its carpet tile business.

About Shaw
The world’s largest carpet manufacturer and a leading floorcovering provider, Shaw Industries Group, Inc. is a vertically integrated manufacturer that supplies carpet, rugs, hardwood, laminate, resilient, tile & stone flooring products and synthetic turf to residential and commercial markets worldwide. A wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. with more than $4 billion (USD) in annual sales and 23,000 associates, Shaw is headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, with salespeople and/or offices located throughout the U.S., as well as Australia, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Singapore and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit http://shawfloors.com/about-shaw.
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Over the past year, Shaw Industries’ new carpet tile plant in Nantong went through a range of playlists. Initially, the percussion of hammers and saws resounded in the air as construction workers built the walls, installed the pipes and fitted the windows. During later visits, it felt like someone had pressed the mute button, with a vast empty factory floor to match. But this time, the plant sounds state-of-the-art.

On a sweltering July morning, the temperature is already above 90 degrees, and the fans are going full blast in the plant. Tim Kow, a Georgia native who is the plant’s technical manager, takes me first to check out the tufters, those miracles of engineering that insert thousands of threads through carpet-backing fabric and are, at the moment, singing with speed.

Upstairs, a seemingly endless roll of tufted carpet slides through hulking steel machines. These are the coaters, which cover the underside with a latex whitewash that hardens after a short stint in an oven larger than a pickup truck. “You could bake a lot of pizzas in there,” Kow says.

Nearby, the carpet is being cut into neat squares bound for shipping boxes, all hisses and slaps as the tiles move and flip along the line for inspection. A team of Chinese inspectors keeps watch to ensure that even during this testing phase of production that Shaw is delivering on its global standard for quality.

The machines run with an almost supernatural force, but a human touch is what makes Shaw an industry leader in carpet tile. For every whirring piece of equipment, there are numerous pairs of hands and eyes on hand, bringing a global roster of skills to the job.

Take Eric Xie, a 31-year-old process engineer from Nantong who joined Shaw last November. Boasting fluent English and experience from years at Sharp, Siemens and Erikson, Xie’s resume mirrors China’s rise as hub for both mechanical hardware and intellectual talent. But Shaw brought him back home to Nantong, where he can stay close to his aging parents and plan for the future.

For now, though, Xie’s days are filled with training the plant’s operators, a task that goes beyond the technical. “Some trainers just want to show the how,” he tells me. “I like to teach them why.”

His strategy fits closely with Shaw’s corporate culture, which prioritizes collaboration as a way of nurturing innovation. And that comes from building trust not just in each other but also in oneself. Chinese workers are often used to a strict hierarchy where just following orders is enough to get promoted. Shaw’s employees are part of something different, and that means they need the license to try on their own.

“At Chinese companies, you need guanxi,” Xie says, using the Mandarin word for relationships, which is essential for professional success in China. “But at Shaw, it’s based on your abilities. It’s fair play.”

Bill Yuan, 26, is taking Xie’s instruction to heart. Before he joined Shaw three months ago, Yuan worked in a warehouse where he operated a forklift. “It was so dull,” he says over the rumble of heavy machinery. Looking for something more challenging he sent in his resume to Shaw, which saw potential. Now, after months of training he operates the tile press, a job that required he master complex software and intimidating hardware. How did he do it? “I studied the manual,” he says. “But I learned about myself.”

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